THE LADDER: The Precarious Climb to Success($21.95Value)

Description

The Ladder recounts the uniquely paradoxical journey of a nationally recognized lawyer and magazine columnist who mistakenly conflated business and personal success, culminating with the eventual Awakening of a broken man that no one would have ever assumed needed fixing. I have enjoyed a long and successful career, and in my profession, some would say celebrity. I have served as a lawyer, counselor, confidante, psychiatrist , and priest to professional luminaries and their even more notable clients. I traveled the country for 40 years representing financial professionals, speaking at national events, conversing with numerous famous plane seatmates (including a HOF rock band), being a civil defendant in a nationally publicized Ponzi scheme, receiving various awards/recognitions, serving as a national magazine columnist, and even performing stand-up comedy. I was the first in my family to go to college after high school. Other than my father, I never had a role model. I also never had a subject matter mentor during my career, opting to pursue emerging legal practices associated with the investment industry. I graduated summa cum laude from the school of hard knocks . The Ladder is a chronological compilation of my journey, addressing: successes (including achieving multi-million-dollar results in my late twenties and early thirties, becoming a law firm Executive Committee member at 33, and building an international law practice); - trials, tribulations, and mistakes (not fully appreciating their significance until later in life); - despite repeated Warning Signs , each time I would shortly thereafter return to a work first, family second, and God a distant last lifestyle; - developing a keen understanding of the human dynamic and the skills to lead, educate and inspire others, all while at the same time unable to fix myself; - a forgotten decade. I do not readily recall distinct details of my late 40s and 50s. Rather, I remember them as a multi-year interconnected series of one long continuous trip; - like too many men of my generation and before, I was always averse to show weakness or any outward sign of vulnerability; - my eventual self-acknowledgment of what I thought was important [i.e., accolades, money, things, etc.] was just a succession of fleeting and unfulfilling experiences-like a junkie needing a fix; - mistakenly equating professional with personal Success; - after achieving Success (or what I thought was Success ), encountering depression in the twilight of my career; and, - overcoming depression and achieving an Awakening through my rediscovery of faith. The Ladder is a happenstance ridden journey written with the benefit (and pain) of hindsight. It does not seek to judge, preach, or convert. Through a series of short vignettes, it recounts the highs, lows, successes, failures, and the eventual Awakening of a broken man that no one would have ever assumed needed fixing. As the result of a late-in-life reconnection with God, I learned that it is never too late to learn the lessons from our mistakes, repent, make amends and do better. Regardless of their chosen profession or vocation, I am hopeful that my journey will resonate with both men and women in the beginning, middle and end of the Climb and encourage them to abandon ego and blind ambition for the redeeming self-acknowledgment that we are never alone or ever enough. Albeit late, I did. It changed my life. I finally achieved Success . I now rise every day with an inner peace that was missing for forty years. I am hopeful that you will find my journey an impetus for personal reflection, and perhaps the start of the Climb to your own Awakening. I am also hopeful that you will recommend this book to others.